Description

In this 3D shoot 'em up, you play Kurt, and your job is to save the world. Aliens have sent 8 giant fortresses to destroy earth. You run and jump through 6 missions of strange 3D worlds and kill the "Stream Riders" with your machine gun arm. Precise platform jumps are part of the challenge.

Kurt is equipped with a special battle suit with an included parachute and a sniper interface (allowing you to aim precise shooting while standing still) embedded in your helmet. Further weaponry enhancements are available as you progress through the game.

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Advertising

Early ads for MDK appeared with the slogan: "Prepare for a religious experience." The game's slogan was later changed to: "On a good day, 2.5 billion people will die".

Development

According to MDK developer diary (August 1st, 1996), one level of the game was developed by demosceners.

German version

In the German version the green blood was re-coloured blue and gore effects (cut off limbs, exploding heads after headshots) were removed. Additional changes are the removed "headshot" statistic and different, less human sounding screams for the kamikaze aliens. A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).

iMac

MDK was one of two video games, alongside Nanosaur, that were bundled with Apple's original 1998 iMac when it launched in August of 1998. The game was not included with the later (1999) Rev. C, Rev. D, and Rev. DV/SE iMac models.

Intro

The PC version does not have an intro movie (only the Playstation version does), but you can clearly see pieces of the intro in the final video after beating the game, albeit in black in white (intro was made in glorious color).

Movie

There was a plan to make a Hollywood movie based on MDK, but obviously this didn't come about. Shiny also got an offer for an animated series, but they didn't accept since they were holding out for the movie.

Music video

The music video that plays at the end of the game is from the song "Non, non, rien n'a change" specially recorded for the game by BILLYZKICK aka Nathalie Cousin (the singer) and whom apparently the development team are fans of (they even urge you to buy her cd's on the readme file... good luck finding any!).

North American Edition

The PC version of MDK sold in North America and Canada had a bright yellow sticker proclaiming 'Exclusive North America Edition!' (see Cover Art section). It is not known if there are any differences to the other versions.

References

In the sled-surfing sequences you'll find a unique power-up not found legally elsewhere in the game (sometimes hidden on an overhead opening you can jump to instead of continuing through the main courses, sometimes laying in plain sight. The hidden arena 9 in world 5, only reachable by using the "givemealliwant" cheat, contains more of them.) These power-ups are actually the face of Jim from Shiny's Earthworm Jim. Get them and for each one you catch a cow will fall on top of your enemies.

The first minecrawler you must fight is heading towards Laguna beach. This is where Shiny's development studio was located at the time.

References to the game

The PlayStation version of the game can be seen played during the very first scene of an episode of the science fiction series The X-Files. Series 5 episode 9 "Schizogeny" starts with a full close up of the games running, and then it pans across to the main character of the story who is playing it.

Soundtrack

There is a soundtrack disc for MDK by Tommy Tallarico. It was released in 1997. The soundtrack can be bought at http://www.synsoniq.com

Tracklist:

Prologue

Stranger Things

The Enemy Among Us

Facing the Inevitable

An Upscale Affair

Vengeful Alien

Grenich Time

Portrait of an Insane Asylum

A Padded Cell

New Territories

Dreaming of Victory

Starship

Gunter Planet

World Militia

Tribal Unity

Crossfire

Bounty Hunter

MDK (Planet Trax Remix)

The soundtrack disc was packaged along with the game itself in Germany, where it sold over 50,000 copies.

Title

The meaning of "MDK" was the subject of many discussions. The most popular interpretations are:

Mission: Deliver Kindness (From the manual)

Max, Dr. Hawkins, Kurt (the protagonists)

Murder, Death, Kill (from the 1993 movie Demolition Man)

When asked, each MDK developer said that MDK stands for something different:

My Diary something beginning with K

My Dog Ken

Million Dollar Ko

Massive Dollops of Ketchup

In the FAQ section of the readme.txt file of MDK, the developers state that "MDK" does not stand for anything special, and can be whatever you want it to stand for, such as Mother Day's Kisses.

In a 2009 interview, Perry stated that "Murder Death Kill" was the title used for the first internal promotional video but had to be replaced because a planned toy line.